Healthy Relationships (Reflection)

I thought it was a very interesting and informative session, but at the same time somewhat boring and not really engaging at times.

The session was very good at stating and going over the characteristics of a healthy relationship, as well as the steps one should take to have a healthy relationship, and went over the idea that it is a continous process of work and dedication. 

The session was also very good at identifying the characteristics of an abusive relationship. Though I realize there are time restrictions, I thought it would be important to note that not all unhealthy relationships are abusive ones, and also identify the characteristics for those different types of unhealthy relationships, because I think they can be quite different from the characteristics of an abusive one. 

Another criticism I had was though the session went into great detail of the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships and how to obtain a healthy one and how to avoid an unhealthy one. I personally felt there could have been more to the aspect of intervening an abusive/unhealthy relationship, even after the session I still felt unsure how to talk to someone if I felt they were in an unhealthy relationship.

I just think that a lot of the idea or techniques the session went over, are not really applicable to a real-life situation where it’s harder to confront a person who you feel is in an unsafe relationship, especially I feel if that relationship is more emotionally abusive rather than physically abusive.

One aspect of the session I did like, was the idea of how media portrayal influences our ideas of relationships. I personally am very interested in how the media influences people in general, but I thought the idea of how the media (sitcoms) generally portrays the stereotypical heterosexual couple to be very interesting-as the male tends to be lazy, stupid, and immature and the female tends to be more mature, responsible (naggy), and intelligent.  

Though it wasn't mention in the session, I feel a lot of the time the media romanticizes abusive/unhealthy relationships and the characteristics that are associated with those relationships, as well as idolize the couples as admirable and desirable relationships.

The two most clear examples I can think of are:

Edward & Bella-From the book series Twilight

 

Romeo & Juliet-From Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet

 

Most of the time I see TV shows, movies, book, and evens songs romanticize these traits the most

Jealousy-The person most really love their partner if they can’t stand to see them with someone else, it's especially "passionate love" if the jealousy leads to physical altercations.

Insecurity-The person doesn’t often think they’re good enough, and they only feel good about themselves when they’re with the other person-They need the other person to validate themselves.

Mistrust-The person can’t stand the idea being without their partner so they go to drastic measures, it’s not that they don’t trust their partner, they just don’t trust other people—relates back to jealousy and insecurity.

Unhealthy dependency-Of course the two always have to be together at all the times, they love each other, they should want to be with the other person 24/7, because if they don’t that means they don’t really love their partner, or at least not on a deep and soul mate level of love. 

Anger/arguing/hatred- They're both passionate people, they only act like they dislike/hate each other because they’re secretly attracted to one another, all their arguments are due to sexual tension-once they’re a couple all that arguing will stop and they'll be happy all the time.

Overall I thought the session was very informative and interesting and I thought it touched about many important key factors of being in an healthy relationship, that a lot of people may not realize are essential.